MATT PRIGGE

The film of “Fifty Shades” is surprisingly skimpy on salaciousness, not even coming close to older transgressive movie bechmarks. These far naughtier films are all presently streaming:
‘Basic Instinct’ (Netflix Instant)
This Paul Verhoen-Joe Eszterhas neo-noir seemed to...

Malin Akerman has a few complaints about “Hamilton.” Not many, but a few.
“I loved it, but I did think it was a little bit too long,” the actress confesses. “But you do get to drink alcohol in the theater, so that makes it much better.” She stresses again that...

In person, Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis are buds. They don’t get along so well in “Colossal.” In the sci-fi comedy-drama, the Oscar-winning actress plays Gloria, a 30-something hot mess who’s forced — thanks in part to a considerable drinking problem — to ditch New York and return to her middle...

Charlie McDowell is Hollywood royalty. He’s the son of Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm McDowell. (The two were married before she wed Ted Danson.) But he’s no rich kid, cashing in on his parents’ success. He’s worked hard, and he’s co-written and directed two films that show he has a real,...

‘Ghost in the Shell’Director: Rupert SandersStars: Scarlett Johansson, Pilou AsbaekRating: PG-133 (out of 5) GlobesThe very embodiment of the American remake of something foreign, the new “Ghost in the Shell” is like a late-comer to a party it itself started. You can blame a good deal of modern...

‘Major League: Wesley Snipes in Focus’BAMcinematekMar. 31 through Apr. 9Ingrid Bergman ditched Hollywood for Europe for five years because she fell in love with Roberto Rossellini. Joaquin Phoenix briefly quit acting to fake-become a rapper. Wesley Snipes went to jail. It was “only” tax invasion,...

Hollywood isn’t that progressive. Much as actors and filmmakers talk a big game about making the world a better place, the movies still haven’t gotten over “white-washing.” This week sees the release of “Ghost in the Shell.” It’s a huge movie — one of the year’s priciest, starring one of our...

Alice Lowe is very nice. It’s a little surreal. If you’re an American and you’ve seen the English actress and filmmaker in a movie, you’ve probably watched her murdering someone. In 2012’s dark comedy “Sightseers,” which she also co-wrote, Lowe played a mousy woman whose boyfriend (Steve Oram)...

‘Wilson’Director: Craig JohnsonStars: Woody Harrelson, Laura DernRating: R3 (out of 5) GlobesYou wouldn’t want to bump into Wilson (Woody Harrelson) in real life. He’s the guy who sits next to a complete stranger on an empty bus and tries to chat. He always speaks his mind, which is to say he’s...

‘CHiPs’Director: Dax ShepardStars: Dax Shepard, Michael PenaRating: R3 (out of 5) GlobesCan you recommend a movie that, more or less objectively, isn’t very good? That is spotty on laughs and sloppy when it comes to tone, story and especially when it tries to be an “action-comedy”? It would be easy...

The coming months find no shortage of space monsters invading the multiplex — and just in time for the current administration to make (admittedly minor) cutbacks to NASA! There’ll undoubtedly be some in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” in Luc Besson’s “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets”...

Naomi Scott had a big problem while making “Saban’s Power Rangers”: There was a pizzeria under the apartment she was staying in.“It was the best pizza in Vancouver, and the best gelato. It’s the worst combination when you’re trying to be strict,” the actress recalls. “Every now and again, I’d treat...

‘Pete’s Dragon’Netflix InstantAs we speak, the new, live-action “Beauty and the Beast” is making all the money — this despite it being a near-beat-for-beat, song-for-song redo of a movie that already exists. At least the studio was adventurous enough with “Pete’s Dragon,” another in their new rash...

So here we are: Humanity has evolved to the point where we have a dark, gritty-ish movie reboot of “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” Amazingly, this project was announced well before reality turned into a funhouse cartoon. We’ve long been used to Hollywood’s disinterest in new ideas, or ideas that...

At 23 years old, Dakota Fanning is a Hollywood veteran. She’s been acting for 18 years, since she was five. Her first job was a Tide commercial. She’s done blockbusters like “War of the Worlds” and played evil Jane Volturi in the “Twilight” movies. Nowadays she mostly does indies. (She will be in...

It’s not as dangerous as chucking out “Meals on Wheels,” but the Trump administration’s gutting of the National Endowment of the Arts could still be catastrophic. Last year the agency only cost about $150 million to fund, or how much it would cost to ensure Melania doesn’t have to sleep in the same...

Danny Boyle was really not surehe wanted to make a “Trainspotting” sequel. There was talk of a follow-up back around 2006, as the smash hit — the one about young heroin addicts and ne’er-do-wells, played by Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and Robert Carlyle — was turning 10. But it...

Natalie Portman has achieved what few actors have: She's appeared in multiple Terrence Malick films. The legendary filmmaker (of “Badlands,” “Days of Heaven” and “The Tree of Life”) is someone actors love to work for, even though his methods are so unusual. There is no script, and each day they...